


Bleeding Love

by cattyk8



Category: DCU, Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Batman saves him, Blow Jobs, Bottom Kirk Langstrom, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post Movie, Smut, Superbat Reverse Bang, Superman is a damsel in distress, Top Hernan Guerra, Whump, arbitrary sprinklings of Spanish language, belated realizations of love, it’s not extra smutty but there IS smut, literally a happy ending, obligatory happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattyk8/pseuds/cattyk8
Summary: After an attack on the Tower of Justice, a depowered Superman searches for Batman, worried the injuries his teammate suffered have left him disoriented and defensive—a disaster waiting to happen if he runs across civilians.Hernan eventually finds Kirk in a bad state, but can he offer the other man the help he needs to survive?
Relationships: Hernan Guerra/Kirk Langstrom, Superman/Batman
Comments: 13
Kudos: 87
Collections: Superbat Reverse Bang 2020





	Bleeding Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SDSlanderson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SDSlanderson/gifts).



> As a backgrounder, this takes place some months after the end of the _Justice League: Gods and Monsters_ animated movie.
> 
> This fic was written for the [SuperBat Reverse Bang 2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/superbatreversebang2020), and as such has awesome art attached to it! It was prompted by the beautifully angsty art of [SDSlanderson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SDSlanderson), or [SDeeyS](https://sdeeys.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, which you can see [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672268) or by clicking on the banner below.

[ ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672268)

Superman wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable. But he supposed it was only a matter of time before the Justice League’s enemies would come up with something to combat his abilities. Sure enough, the militant group of meta-haters who attacked their Tower the night before had come equipped with “red sun” ray guns that had sapped the energy from his very atoms. Or at least that was what it had felt like. 

For Batman, their plan had been simple—injure the man until he was weakened by blood loss, to the point that the nanites that kept him alive began to work against him. His voice was still hoarse from screaming as he’d watched _los cabrones_ hack away at his teammate, at his friend, after they had caught Kirk as he had tried to help him. 

They’d taken Hernan out first, coming to the Tower under the guise of negotiating a truce, only to turn hostile the moment they’d been allowed through the doors. They’d quickly let in their co-conspirators, a small army of men and women trained in brutal warfare and fueled by bigotry. 

When they’d trained the ray guns on him and he’d felt himself weakening, he’d taken on as many of Kirk’s captors as he could, freeing him and calling for the other man to run and save himself. Kirk, long used to following his lead, had melted into the shadows as only Batman could. Hernan had lost sight of him long before he’d lost consciousness from the blows delivered by his attackers.

But Kirk hadn’t fled, only made a strategic retreat. Then he’d used his home-field advantage against the attackers, laying traps like a demented but deadly version of _Home Alone,_ that old movie his little sister had loved and watched incessantly when they were children. 

Hernan had been helpless to do anything but listen, his strength sapped, eyes human-dull and unable to generate anything but tears, let alone heat vision. Once he’d been restrained to a wall in the command center, the bad guys had kept their distance, though always with at least two of those nasty ray guns trained on him. 

At first, he’d been so enraged at his own helplessness and _los huevos_ on these men, that he hadn’t even noticed what Kirk had been doing. Then he’d been mired in worry for Kirk, but also in pity and disgust for himself, for being suckered like an optimistic fool, to even consider that these men, who hated him and Kirk for little reason other than that they were different, would even consider a peaceful compromise. 

But the truth was, he and Kirk had both been so tired of fighting for the right to merely exist, for the consent to _help_ where they were able, for the chance to prove they were more than the murdering monsters the media made them out to be. 

It was when he’d considered giving up their new no-killing rule to revert to their old policy of vanquishing their enemies no matter what. He saw a flicker on the monitors, then suddenly one of the enemy squads sent out to guard the entrance was unable to be contacted. The team sent to check on them had gone dark as well. And then a third, and a fourth.

By the time the fifth squad went silent, Superman was smirking. He was full of pride and admiration for his teammate, who had, as always, managed to use that gigantic brain of his to overcome odds stacked high against him. 

“What are you smiling at?” one of the enemy soldiers demanded. 

“Only your impending defeat, _el pendejo_ ,” he replied airily, and earned the butt of a rifle to the face as his reward. He spat out blood in disgust. He was so weak. He could only watch the monitors and the enemy that surrounded him to distract himself from the pain of the injuries they’d inflicted once they had made him vulnerable.

“Shut up, before I give you something to cry about,” the thug said, then rejoined the others who were attempting to put together some strategy to defeat Kirk.

Hernan didn’t reply to this straight-out-of-a-comic-book remark, though he was tempted to point out that he hadn’t been speaking to begin with. Instead he reveled in the knowledge that Kirk would defeat them, and maybe leave some of their enemies in the dust for him to kick. He gloried in knowing Kirk was fighting for their home, for _him_ , and he had not a doubt his partner would win.

Because that was quintessentially Kirk. 

It hurt Hernan whenever Kirk had accused him of looking down on him, or at least not viewing him as an equal, though it happened less now than he had at the beginning of their association. 

And maybe Hernan had been guilty of coddling him a little, but, he’d thought, there were good reasons for this. Kirk had an ability to focus on a problem like no other, and while that had often led to out-of-the-box and well-thought-out solutions, this also meant he wasn’t always the best at situational awareness, despite the heightened senses that came with his vampirism. Plus, when he was at full strength, in a head-to-head battle, Hernan would always win against Kirk (against anyone, even Bekka), hands down.

But what Kirk had never understood was that Hernan had always felt Kirk was the better man of the two of them. Even after his family’s callous rejection of him, his best friend’s betrayal, the bloodthirst that he believed had turned him into a monster—even after all that, there was a purity about him that Hernan had always been able to see. 

Kirk thought himself mired in corruption; Hernan had always grieved the way he failed to see past the pain and hunger to realize he _did_ still have a soul, and that soul was _beautiful_.

Now Hernan was in awe of the reality of Kirk in action. It was not just his soul that was beautiful, but the singularity of his loyalty, that even when Hernan had told him to go, he had known the other man would stay and try to save him. Had dreaded it, until he saw this—the brilliance of Kirk’s strategic mind mingled with the dark, dangerous grace of Batman. 

When the lights of the command center flickered, he couldn’t help it. He laughed.

“Now you will regret ever stepping foot in our tower,” he called out to the surprised militants.

“Almost as much as we regret vowing to avoid killing whenever possible,” the cool voice of his teammate added.

And then the Bat descended, wings splayed, taking out no less than four of the men who’d trained their ray guns at Hernan, faster than Superman, weakened as he was, could track. A batarang flew amid the cries of their enemies, and static buzzing and resultant crashes accompanied the sight of Batman taking out the weapons that had sapped Hernan’s strength.

It was over in minutes, and then Hernan felt the restraints on his arms, legs, and torso loosen even as his powers began to return slowly.

“Thank you, _mi amigo_ ,” he said, reaching out to lay a hand on his Kirk’s shoulder as the other man surveyed the mess of bodies—incapacitated, not dead—before them. 

_Mi amor_ , was what he didn’t say, his blood, his heart singing from the thrill of watching Kirk decimate their enemies. The thought shocked him, not because he was surprised to realize that he had fallen for his teammate, but because he was appalled at himself for not realizing it until he was standing so deep in his feelings he was practically choked by them. 

“Hernan.” Kirk’s voice was flat. “I need you to get them out of the tower.” 

There was a subtle air of dread to the way he said that last, the way his tone hesitated just briefly on the word _tower_ , that had Hernan worried.

“Kirk?” He stepped forward so he could see the other man’s face, but Kirk turned and gave him his back, stepping away. He felt that little bit of distance between them like a punch to the gut.

“Please, Hernan. I _need_ you to get them out, and then I need you to leave. J-just until you get your powers back.”

He scowled. “I will happily rid our home of _esta basura_ , but I refuse to leave you. You are injured, and—”

“And I am _hungry_!” Kirk snarled, turning back to face him. It was then that Hernan saw the many unhealed wounds soaking the other man’s uniform, the way his always-pale face was pasty-white. The flashing of those fangs, elongated by Kirk’s thirst in a way Hernan hadn’t seen since he’d first met the other man at the docks. 

“I’m hungry, _Superman_ , and you are almost as weak as a human. And they destroyed my lab, as well as my stores of synthesized blood. I won’t be able to brew a new batch for… too long. I won’t hold out, Hernan. I _can’t_.”

“Then you can drink from me, my friend.” Hernan stepped toward him once more, stretched out his arm to hold his wrist, already bloodied from the struggle he’d put up against being restrained, up in offering.

Kirk’s chest was heaving, his nostrils flaring. He hissed at the scent of Herman’s blood. Superman steadied himself in anticipation of the man’s bite. But Kirk stepped back, shaking himself like a dog. “I... I can’t.” He backed up some more. “I don’t know that I could… stop.”

“I’ll recover,” Hernan told him shortly. He had never _not_ recovered from anything, and he was confident this would be no different. And Kirk was in _pain_ , and hungry. And he had _saved_ Hernan. It was the least he could do.

“No,” Kirk said, his voice a growl. “I won’t take that risk. Not with _you_. Get out, Hernan. Get them all out, or I’ll do something we’ll both regret.”

And Hernan damned his weakened senses because even injured, Kirk managed to disappear from right before his eyes.

Superman was left staring at the air before him foolishly. Then he was brought out of his stunned state by the sound of a groan as one of the thugs started to regain consciousness. By this time he’d regained enough of his powers to manage to get restraints on everyone before they stirred fully. He also opened the sun-shades on the tower, and in moments, the command center was flooded with morning light.

That instantly made him feel better, the warmth and rejuvenation unfurling within him like a flower. It also filled him with satisfaction, as Kirk had knocked most of their enemies out by dealing them blows to the head, and the room was filled with groans as the concussed prisoners winced and grimaced at the brightness.

Within minutes, he felt quite a bit of strength had returned, and he was able to levitate, even if he wouldn’t be too confident flying beyond atmospheric levels quite yet. So he gathered all the attackers—and found the “missing” teams strung up in various places inside the tower—then deposited them outside the tower grounds. 

He managed to surprise a gaggle of gawkers, SWAT, and news media, as apparently someone had noticed the unusual number of people going into the Tower the night before.

“Superman! Can you tell us what happened here?” The familiar strident tones of a certain reporter for the Daily Planet pricked his ears.

“Certainly, Ms. Lane,” he said, watching out of the corner of one eye as the man in charge of the soldiers and SWAT team strode forward, glaring. Colonel Steve Trevor was President Waller’s pet cleanup man, and he’d long been a pain in Hernan’s ass, no matter how much Bekka had liked him. He tried not to think of how today might never have happened, had Wonder Woman still been here, instead of traveling the universe with Lex Luthor of all people. 

He bit back a sigh and gestured toward the groaning captives on the ground. “These men attempted to take control of the Tower, injuring myself and my teammate. We were able to take back our home, mostly thanks to Batman’s strategies, and we are prepared to turn them over to the authorities so criminal charges can be filed against them. Of course, we will also be suing for damages to our property.”

“Do you know what motivated the attack?”

“I’m sure you can ask them, although they did seem to enjoy repeating the words ‘should have stayed home instead of coming here, alien freak’ or something similar quite frequently. Batman they called unnatural, and an abomination, and they claimed they would send him ‘back to hell where he belonged.’ There was more, but my mother taught me never to swear in front of a lady.” His voice was even when describing the slurs sent his way, but he couldn’t help letting some of his anger leak through over what they had said to Kirk.

“Huh. I’m surprised to find them relatively hale and hearty, then.” Lois Lane’s signature sardonic tone came shining through, and he smirked a little.

“Believe me when I say that it was very difficult _not_ to give in to the urge to deal them damage similar to that which they tried to do unto us. The government men here would be wise to be swift in their removal. I can only credit my teammate’s restraint.” 

Steve Trevor, who had come up to stand right in front of him, stopped abruptly and motioned his men toward the captives. The soldiers began hauling the guys away, also retrieving the sack Hernan had filled with their weapons—the mundane ones like rifles and knives, anyway. The ray guns would be kept at the Tower to be examined by Kirk before being destroyed.

“And where _is_ Batman?” Lane herself exhibited remarkable restraint in keeping herself in front of Trevor and her focus on Hernan.

At her question, he pressed his lips into a thin line, a last defense against the curses he would prefer to utter. After a moment, he said, “Batman was injured in the assault. If you’ll excuse me, I will be seeing to my teammate now.”

He turned to go back into the Tower.

“Superman!” That was Trevor. “I need an official statement from you.”

“And you’ll receive one, Colonel. _After_ I see to my friend’s injuries. Why don’t you come by, say, tomorrow morning? For now, let me assure you that everything I said to Ms. Lane is the truth. Feel free to question the men I have delivered into your keeping.”

Although his whole body still ached from his injury and imprisonment, and he had no doubt he looked a sight—bruised and bloody with his clothes torn in places—he lifted into the air and floated swiftly back through the doors of the Tower. Once inside, he reached into his pocket and hit a remote control he’d collected from a safe in the command center, bringing the Tower’s shields up. This was one device he would be keeping on his person at all times from now on.

He looked for Kirk. 

Normally Superman had little trouble finding even the stealthy Bat, but his powers weren’t quite at full strength. An hour in the sun probably would set him to rights, but he didn’t want to heal up too fast. Then he’d be of no use to Kirk.

Batman wasn’t in his chambers, nor in the lab he’d claimed as his own, which could be found on the same level. In the end, Hernan had to go room by room, and ended up backtracking to the medical bay.

The lights in this area were dim; they hadn’t needed it since the disastrous tragedy that had revealed the treachery of Kirk’s old friend, _el hijo de puta de_ Will Magnus, a brilliant scientist in his own right who had harbored a secret resentment for Kirk for longer than Hernan had known the pseudo-vampire. 

Magnus had broken Kirk’s heart thrice over the day he’d boasted of how he’d infected Kirk with vampirism by sabotaging the science experiment meant to save Kirk from a slow death by lymphoma. Not only that, but he’d confessed to killing his wife Tina, who had been Kirk’s only other friend from before his infection, and revealed a plot to take over the world, then killed himself when he’d failed.

Hernan didn’t like that Kirk had come here, where they had brought the man they’d believed to be injured, but who had turned out to be a Trojan Horse. Magnus had just been waiting for Superman and Wonder Woman to be drawn away before taking over the Tower.

“I told you to leave,” came a voice from the darkness.

“And I told you I would help you,” he answered reasonably. “I am mostly recovered, but you should still be able to penetrate my skin with your—”

“I don’t want to drink from you, Hernan!” Kirk’s voice was a study in frustrated temptation, in agony. Hernan floated toward it. “No, stay away!” Now there was an almost feral note to it, like a muted roar.

“No,” he said. “ _¿Como puedo irme mientras mi amigo sufre?_ ” How can I leave while my friend suffers?

“ _¿Cómo es que no puedes? Cuándo te pide que lo haga?”_ How can you not, when he asks you to? 

The other man’s voice was soaked with tears and misery as he rasped the words. 

Hernan took the last steps forward, toward the corner where Kirk was huddled, and lowered himself to his knees before him. “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” he said gently. When he saw how Kirk stiffened instantly upon realizing how close he had come, he resisted the urge to lean forward, to offer the other man some physical connection by a clasp of hands or an embrace. 

“I didn’t, before,” Kirk whispered. “I—I’ve been teaching myself, a little, after Bekka left. Valentina has been helping me, since she started coming around more often.”

Valentina. Hernan’s older sister, who loved him no matter what. No matter that he was responsible for putting her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life when they had been but children. Who had insisted he stop keeping his families apart, after Bekka left, after Magnus had tried to destroy the world. After she’d learned that apart from Herman, Kirk had no one. Valentina, who had called Kirk _mi hermano_ from the very first, adopting him into her heart so quickly Hernan was left questioning why he’d kept the two sides of himself separate for so long.

He let a smile curve his lips at the thought of Kirk and his sister conspiring to surprise him with Kirk’s sudden fluency in the language of his youth. “She did, did she? I’ll have to scold her for keeping secrets from her big brother the next time I see her.”

When Kirk stayed silent, huddled up on the floor, his arms wrapped defensively around his legs, Hernan chanced a hand to his knee. “Kirk—”

Had he been crouched instead of kneeling, the suddenness with which Kirk blew past him, headed for another corner or maybe even out of the room, would have landed him on his ass. As it was, he laid a hand on the floor to steady himself, then turned to look in the direction his friend had gone.

Kirk hadn’t gone far. Worry tugged at Hernan’s insides to find Kirk half-collapsed across the room. That worry solidified into a lump in his chest when he saw the blood trail Kirk had left. He rose to his feet, then into the air to float over to the other man, then pull him into his arms. 

“Come, Kirk,” he said, holding fast while Kirk struggled. Now that the adrenaline of battle had faded, and he had continued to lose blood, Kirk was weakening. “Let me help. Your body has ceased being able to heal your wounds.”

“It… healed the worst… I had… hoped… there would be… plasma left in med bay… but I drank it… before coming… to you...”

Hernan frowned. How bad had it been, that Kirk was bleeding from at least half a dozen wounds that he could see, and yet the worst had already healed? Bad, he decided. _Mierda_. He could have lost him. Could _still_ lose him, he realized, as Kirk’s eyes lost their focus. No. Not on his watch. 

Not while they held their Tower, waiting for Bekka to return.

Not while they were still only a League of two.

Not while Kirk held his heart, and he had only just realized it.

Not while Hernan could help him.

Hernan sat down on the ground, hugging Kirk to him. At this point, Kirk’s feeble attempts at warding him off barely even registered. Then, still supporting the other man, he pulled back far enough so he could look him in the eyes. “Kirk,” he said, his voice as commanding as he could make it. “You _will_ drink from me, and you _will_ take as much as you need to kickstart your nanites into healing your injuries.”

“N-n-no… Herman… C-can’t r-risk it.”

“Nothing is _más precioso_ than your life, _corazon_ , and it is my risk to take.” If his teammate realized he had just called him his heart, he didn’t respond. He leaned in and pressed his forehead to Kirk’s. “Let me _do_ this, Kirk. The world needs Batman to come through this. _I_ need _you_ to come through this.”

He pulled back, then took the eye shields of Kirk’s mask off, the better to let him see his determination. Instead he saw the other man’s self-doubt and hesitation. He also saw Kirk had started to shiver. Kirk had at one point confessed that since being infected, he had never been affected by anything but the coldest of climates.

“You know what? We can argue about this later, when you’re up to it.”

“B-but what if…”

“What if what, Kirk? What is a little injury to me, which I will not even scar from, in exchange for your life?”

“What if I take… too much?”

 _Mierda_ , but the man was stubborn. “Then you will help me up to the command center, where the sunshades have already been lifted, and you will put me out into the sunlight. Photosynthesis, remember? Hernan Guerra, the Super Plant.”

They’d joked about it, after Kirk had managed to get enough sample cells from Hernan to test under a microscope. When Lex Luthor and Bekka had left for Bekka’s homeworld of New Genesis, Luthor had left Hernan with a data drive packed with knowledge of Kryptonian science and technology that he’d semi-purloined from the government. Hernan had been excited to learn all he could about himself and the home he would never know, and Kirk had been looking for a science project. 

They’d spent many days in each other’s labs, and they’d found themselves growing closer, learning more and more about one another. Really, Hernan should have realized he was falling when he’d all but appropriated Kirk’s couch, which was situated so he could read about Krypton on a tablet while also keeping the other man in view, as his own. 

Kirk just shook his head and buried his face in Hernan’s shoulder. 

Well, _that_ wouldn’t do. 

Hernan reached over to Kirk’s belt, to where he knew the other man kept his batarangs. There was one remaining, and Kirk was too slow, too weak to keep Hernan from grabbing it once he realized his intention. Before Batman could protest any further, Hernan had drawn the razor-sharp edge of one wing down the side of his neck, pressing hard enough to ensure he sliced the skin open. 

The batarang dented a little as he drew it downward, telling him he wasn’t yet at full power, but had recovered enough that Kirk should be able to take quite a bit of his blood volume before it would become an issue. He felt a grim satisfaction at the thought.

And then again as Kirk hissed, turned his head and immediately latched onto Hernan’s neck.

Hernan hadn’t known what to expect of Kirk’s bite. Pain, yes, and there was some of that, especially with the initial scrape of teeth along the wound, with Kirk sucking down what must have been gulps of his blood.

But then the low growl that had seemed to hover in Kirk’s throat had softened into a groan, and Kirk had tilted his head to change the angle of the bite. One gloved hand reached up to cup the nape of Hernan’s neck as Hernan could only clutch at Kirk’s back. 

The pain turned to heat, and that heat to desire.

And still it _grew_.

Dazedly, Hernan realized that there was a thrumming rhythm to Kirk’s drinking. 

It took several more moments, several cycles of pull and release, pull and release, before he realized Kirk had paced his swallows with the steady beating of his heart, always a bit slower than a human’s.

After a minute, two—who even knew any more?—Hernan had to shift the way he was sitting a little awkwardly. _Madre de dios_ , he was _hard_. 

He bit back a moan.

And then again when Kirk shifted, the terrifying languor gone from his limbs, to straddle Hernan’s lap. And, _Dios_. _Dios mío_. Kirk was hard too.

Now they were chest to chest, and cock to cock, and it took everything in Hernan not to thrust his hips into Kirk’s. But Kirk moved his head just the tiniest bit, and then his tongue was lapping at Hernan’s neck, and he pressed closer with a small moan.

Helplessly, Hernan found himself groaning, his hands sliding lower, to take Kirk’s hips into a grip that would be bruising on a human. But Kirk started a rocking motion that rubbed his cock against Hernan’s, and even through the layers that separated them, the friction all but made Hernan’s eyes roll up into his head.

Kirk gave up that gentle lapping to suck a little harder at the wound in Hernan’s neck, adjusting his bite so the fangs kept the cut, surely smaller now, open enough to get the Kryptonian’s life-giving blood through. It should have hurt, more than anything else, but that edge of pain grabbed at Hernan’s desire and seemed to force everything inside him wide open.

He grasped Kirk’s hips and wantonly started to grind against the other man, not caring that they were both still fully clothed and humping on the dark med bay floor like schoolboys.

Yesterday, he wouldn’t have believed he could moan Kirk’s name like he was.

Now that name was the only word his lips seemed capable of forming as he thrust against his friend, his lover, his _love_.

Kirk’s fangs pulled out of his neck, and there was a moment of desolation, of loss. But then he felt a cool hand on his cheek—when had Kirk pulled off his gloves? _Dios_ , he was so hot, like Kirk had lit a sun within him—and Kirk whispered his name.

“Hernan.” 

Yesterday, he wouldn’t have known Kirk could say his name like that.

Like it was something precious, and good, and wished for.

Like _he_ was something precious, and good, and _wanted_.

He looked at Kirk, into those eyes the color of dark rubies, and breathed his name.

He would never be sure who moved first, but in the next moment, their mouths had all but melded together. He could taste a faint coppery flavor that must have been his own blood, but as his tongue tangled with Kirk’s slightly cooler one, the heat of desire expanded in his chest. Pooled in his belly. Set even his fingers and toes to tingle with energy.

Still he thrust against Kirk, as Kirk rocked against him, and Hernan could do nothing but hold tight to the man who was his whole world in this moment, with all of that heat and sizzle building inside of him.

Could do nothing but grasp the back of that uniform as they found a rhythm together.

Gasp into that cool mouth as he nicked his tongue on a sharp fang.

Moan his lover’s name like a prayer.

Have his own murmured back like absolution.

Detonate.

His breathing hitched, that fire in his chest drawing tight yet expanding impossibly large. His vision whited out. He shouted Kirk’s name as he came harder than he’d had in years. Better than he’d come in all his memory.

And chased the wonder of Kirk— _mi amigo, mi amor, mi ángel_ —into the dark.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to the bright sunlight that could only belong to early afternoon. He was lying on the couch, which had been dragged to the middle of the command center, with the sunshades fully retracted. 

He was wearing boxers—clean ones, one part of his brain noticed—and nothing else.

He was alone.

He sat up. Floated up, really.

Then turned, just as Kirk emerged from the elevator doors, a tray in hand. He was wearing a henley shirt and jeans, in a casual look Hernan loved but Kirk rarely indulged in.

Still, Hernan felt a little underdressed—okay, a _lot_ underdressed.

Especially when his cock let him know just how _much_ he appreciated the way Kirk looked in those jeans.

He floated the few inches back down to the sofa and grabbed a throw pillow to save his dignity.

The other man’s smile was shy, hesitant, as he came forward. Hernan decided not to notice the way the tray shook ever so slightly in those strong, capable hands.

“I wasn’t sure if food and orange juice would help after blood loss like it would a human,” Kirk said, his tone just the slightest bit more stilted than usual, “but I thought it wouldn’t hurt.”

Hernan was ravenous, but his hunger for food came in second to the hunger for this man in front of him.

Who had absolutely _no_ idea of how thoroughly he owned his soul, from the way he set the tray down on the table before the couch and then awkwardly stood back, hands twisting, eyes anywhere but on Hernan.

Swallowing down his own nervousness, Hernan patted the couch beside him. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me.”

Kirk came around the table with none of his usual lithe movements. Those oh-so-hot jeans must have been ironed stiff with starch from the way he sat gingerly on the opposite end of the couch.

Well, Hernan could fix that. He scooted to the middle. He raised his hand, and seeing Kirk flinch just the tiniest bit, laid it on the other man’s shoulder instead of his cheek like he had intended. 

“We need to talk about this,” he said, and he was damn proud of the way he managed to keep his voice steady, level, as if his world hadn’t just been turned on its axis and realigned with this man, this beautiful soul, at its center

“Or we could not,” Kirk said softly, still refusing to look at him. 

Hands still doing that strange twisting motion that would be wringing if only he would clasp them together instead of try to contort them into some kind of impossible shape.

A man who had seen less of the world, who appreciated less the way love could be snatched from you at any moment, who had not fought for everything he possessed since he was a boy—some other man would lose confidence at the way his lover was behaving.

But.

Kirk had spent hours, days, weeks looking at Hernan’s cells to try to figure out what made him tick.

Kirk had pored over the information on Kryptonian physiology, on Kryptonian medical science and technology, just so he would know how to deal with any injury Hernan might take in battle.

Kirk had learned Spanish, so that they could comfortably converse in whichever language Hernan might prefer. 

And he was sure that if he decided to study Kryptonian, Kirk would be learning to conjugate right alongside him.

Kirk had brought him—someone who was well-nigh invulnerable to injury and sickness on any given Tuesday—orange juice, toast, and fruit because he’d been worried about his _blood sugar_.

Kirk _loved_ him. 

And Kirk was _terrified_.

But Hernan was Superman, and Superman had always, _always_ , looked out for Batman. From that very first moment they met in the dankness of the Gotham docks. 

So he smiled, and gathered up all the pieces of hope and wonder and nervousness and bittersweet joy and desire in his chest—all those little pieces that came together inside him like a billboard reading _Hernan Guerra loves Kirk Langstrom_. And he completed the motion he’d started, lifted his hand from Kirk’s shoulder to his cheek, forcing those scarlet eyes to meet his own blue ones.

“ _Te amo_ , Kirk,” he said. And added, for good measure, “I love you.”

Kirk’s mouth dropped open, and Hernan smiled a little when he flashed a little fang; the other man tended to be scrupulously careful not to do so, most days.

But then again, most days, your teammate didn’t just call you over and tell you he loved you. 

Well. 

Hernan could change that.

 _Would_ change that, he decided as he saw the smallest of smiles start on Kirk’s face.

“How?” Kirk breathed.

At this, Hernan shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “It came to me as an epiphany yesterday, as I was hanging about like a damsel in distress waiting for Batman to save me.”

Kirk snorted and dragged a hand down his face. “You mean the most terrifying fourteen hours of my life?”

Hernan scooted closer. “I suppose,” he said, pulling Kirk nearer and smirking in satisfaction when he was able to drag him to his side, almost onto his lap. “My captors provided me with an excellent view of the security monitors, and I went into a mental soliloquy over your unbounded bravery.” 

He cupped the back of Kirk’s neck with a gentle hand, felt the finest of tremors beneath it. 

“Your stupendous strategy.” 

He leaned over and nipped the lobe of Kirk’s ear, glorying in the way Kirk’s breath hitched. 

“Your amazing resourcefulness.” 

He pressed his lips to a point right below Kirk’s jaw, right where the man had bitten him just that morning. 

“Your brilliant mind.”

He peppered kisses all along Kirk’s jawline.

“That stunning physicality, when you take down our enemies.”

Up Kirk’s cool cheek.

“Your steadfast loyalty.”

The corner of his mouth.

“The beautiful soul you don’t believe you have.”

At this, Kirk frowned, pulled back. Opened his mouth to protest, only to have Hernan nip at his bottom lip scoldingly.

“You don’t see it, _amor_ , but I revel in it every day.”

“But—”

“My brain _es estúpido, mi corazón_ , and only understood yesterday where my heart had gone, but it has been yours for a very long time.”

“Hernan.”

“Yes.” He would never tire of the way Kirk said his name, like a benediction and a plea all in one. 

“ _Hernan_.” 

And just as he had earlier, Kirk turned and straddled him. Dark hair gleaming in the sunlight, skin like alabaster, eyes like crimson jewels.

 _Hermoso_. Beautiful.

Simply, joyfully, Kirk pressed his cool lips to Hernan’s warm ones. And just as simply as Hernan had earlier, spoke.

“I love you,” he said, and kissed him again. “ _Te amo_.”

And because Hernan had been hungry for this man since he’d walked in, but really for months, perhaps years now, he growled just a bit, then pulled him in for a ferocious kiss, hands gripping those jean-clad hips before slipping upward to rove under the gray Henley.

“You’re overdressed,” he grumbled against cool lips.

Kirk laughed, a joyful peal of a sound that made something sweet bubble in Hernan’s chest. “Valentina is going to be so mad at me,” he murmured.

Hernan frowned. “My sister?”

Kirk nodded, and laughed again. “She said she was tired of watching me eat my heart out for you. Told me to remember my vampirism was from nanites and not the sparkly kind.”

Hernan grinned, shaking his head ruefully. “That girl is incorrigible.”

“She’s _your_ sister.”

“Yours now too, by her insistence,” Hernan reminded him, and was rewarded with a soft smile.

“Anyway, apart from teaching me Spanish, she tried to teach me how to cook.”

Hernan choked at that. Kirk was a genius at chemistry, but the man could barely boil water without burning it. Hernan had always done the cooking at the Tower because both Kirk and Bekka had been completely hopeless. “Did she survive the experience?”

Kirk swatted Hernan’s chest playfully, but he was laughing, and Hernan could not help but laugh with him. “Barely,” he admitted. “She had this idea that she would help me seduce you with home-cooked meals and candlelit dinner dates.”

“Ah. And all you had to do was rescue a pretty Kryptonian in distress, held hostage at the top of an ivory tower.” Hernan batted his eyes at Kirk, earning another playful swat.

“Yeah, that was _all_.”

He was mesmerized by the light in Kirk’s eyes and felt a compelling need to kiss the man breathless.

He gave in to temptation. Joyously. Passionately.

He drew that lovely gray Henley up, over and off. Let his hands roam that smooth, pale skin. 

“I don’t know why you had to get all dressed up,” he grumbled, fumbling for the fly on Kirk’s jeans. “You left _me_ in nothing but boxers.”

“I was actually thinking you’d absorb the sunlight better that way,” Kirk retorted as he slipped a cool hand into said boxers, wrapping those long fingers around Hernan’s cock and making him gasp.

“Alone up here, asleep in the sunshine, like Snow White in a glass coffin?” Hernan teased before sealing their lips in a kiss even as he drew the placket of Kirk’s jeans open, pushed pants and boxers down.

“Does that make me your Prince Charming?” Kirk said, laughing into Hernan’s mouth.

“Always, _cariño_.”

All thought of snark or teasing flew out of Hernan’s mind in the next moment as Kirk stepped back to divest Hernan of his boxers and himself of his remaining clothes, then knelt before him, one hand squeezing his cock. 

Then Kirk smiled, showing fang again, and then plunged his mouth down on Hernan’s length, taking him all the way to the back of his throat in a cool, slick move that lit fires inside Hernan even as he fought a shiver from the feel of it. 

“ _Dios mío!_ ”

Kirk fucked his mouth on Hernan’s cock, doing something with his throat that just _squeezed_ , and Hernan found himself perilously close to coming.

But he didn’t want to come like this.

So he took a handful of Kirk’s hair and squeezed gently, warningly. “I want you in bed this time, _mi amor_.”

Kirk grinned at him wickedly. “Gonna fly us there, your highness?”

So Hernan did, and he tumbled his lover, his _love_ , onto the crisp sheets of his bed, choosing his bedroom only because it was closer. 

“Bekka would never let us hear the end of this, if she were here.”

Kirk was laughing. Hernan had never seen him laugh as much as he had today; he vowed he would keep him laughing from then on. Happiness all but limned Kirk in light.

 _Beautiful_ , he thought again, and kissed that laugh like he could taste it.

When he eased up and Kirk caught his breath, he reached over and pulled out a bottle of lube.

And this was where his confidence failed him.

“How do you want to do this, _amor_?”

But Kirk merely smiled and took the bottle from him. Applied the lube liberally onto his hands and then wrapped them around Hernan’s cock, making the Kryptonian hiss at the cool, slick hands as they stroked and squeezed and caressed. 

His own hands were busy and questing, as were his lips, but Kirk drew him up so they were face to face again soon enough.

“I want you inside me, Hernan,” he whispered, with the gruff demand of Batman overlaying the gentleness that was pure Kirk.

He was helpless to do anything but obey, and together they lined him up against Kirk’s entrance.

Together they moaned each other’s names as Hernan pushed slowly, inexorably in, and then bottomed out.

Their eyes met, in fierce passion, in wondrous delight, as they thrust and rocked and whispered their love to one another as the need between them built into something large and expansive even as it coiled tightly inside them.

It was like the universe had stuffed itself into this one bedroom, and they were at its center.

They came together, Kirk spilling over both their chests as he thrust up in Hernan’s grip even as Hernan came inside him.

It was as if all the air in the room had been eaten up by an inferno that had engulfed them both.

Moments, minutes, an eternity later, Hernan pulled out of Kirk, used his super speed to clean them both up and dispose of the soiled washcloth, then collapsed onto the bed.

Hernan wrapped his arms around his love and snuggled in closer, feeling like everything he needed in the world, in the universe, was right here, languid and sated and _happy_ in his embrace.

Well. Almost everything.

“Huh.”

“What?” Kirk murmured sleepily.

“I feel kind of bad that we left lunch upstairs,” Hernan confessed.

Kirk grumbled, and turned in his arms to bury his face in Hernan’s shoulder. “We’ll get it later.”

This was nice, Hernan thought, pulling him that infinitely small bit closer.

Very nice.

But.

Hernan grimaced. “I’m _hungry_.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the [artwork that inspired this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672268) was initially "Fallen Angel," but after I had written the fic, the lyrics of the song "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis (as in, "You cut me open and I keep bleeding, I keep, keep bleeding love") kept coming back in my head every time I edited this, and SDS, who made such beautiful art, graciously allowed me to change the title.
> 
> As always, thanks be unto my badass betas, [Holdt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdt) and [serephent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serephent), who held my hand through my inevitable angsting-over-having-to-write-porn. Additional thanks to [AriesNoHope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesNoHope) for assistance with Spanish translations.
> 
> Also, please forgive my first attempts at serious SuperBat smut.


End file.
